CHAPTER XIX
THE CAFÉ OF MANY TONGUES
As if the torments of his own fire were past enduring, the Sun, who all day had blistered the red roofs and pavements of the tropical sea-port, dropped like a red-hot stove-lid behind the mountain and into the sea. The last little lizard scurried over the burning stones of the courtyard, panting for relief. It seemed as if all the windows and doors of Heaven had been shut, and even with nightfall only a little coolness seeped through, to give promise of relief in the later watches.
In the street outside the café walls, a tired donkey with head sinking below the level of the crude shafts, plodded on the last lap of his journey. Skulking, rib-slatted curs and half-naked children sprawled over the door sills or on the broken sidewalks, dabbling their brown and yellow toes in the green half-dried up puddles that spread over the ill-defined gutters. Fat, girdleless brown women offered the fluent nourishment of pouchy breasts to their all-naked youngest born, and under their striped awnings native shopkeepers drowsed. their heads sinking lower and lower until they banged against the white walls of their bazaars, waking them to a half-torpid consciousness. The flames of sickly lamps shone on
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